Publication, Part of Psychological Therapies, Reports on the use of IAPT services
Psychological Therapies: reports on the use of IAPT services, England, March 2023 Final including a report on the IAPT Employment Advisers pilot and Quarter 4 2022-23 data
Official statistics, Experimental statistics
In this month’s publication we have published additional data files relating to activity recorded in the April 2023 primary submission window. These files are intended to be sources of additional information and not to replace the regular monthly publication using Final data. A publication using April Final data will be released as normal next month. The additional files included in this month’s publication are:
IAPT Monthly Activity Data File – April 2023 Primary ("iapt_month_apr_2023_activity_primary.csv")
Report on Employment Adviser IAPT services pilot – Primary Data File, April 2023 ("iapt_month_apr_2023_ea_primary.csv”)
These files can be downloaded from the Resources section at the bottom of the page.
Please note that providers not submitting data prior to the close of the Primary window (25th May 2023) will not have data included in the April Primary files.
6 June 2023 11:48 AM
Outcomes
Outcomes in IAPT are measured in terms of three measures:
recovery,
reliable improvement,
and reliable recovery.
Recovery
Recovery in IAPT is measured in terms of ‘caseness’ – a term which means a referral has severe enough symptoms of anxiety or depression to be regarded as a clinical case. A referral has moved to recovery if they were defined as a clinical case at the start of their treatment (‘at caseness’) and not as a clinical case at the end of their treatment, measured by scores from questionnaires tailored to their specific condition.
The Government target is that 50% of eligible referrals to IAPT services should move to recovery.⁶
51.2% of eligible referrals moved to recovery
Reliable improvement
A referral has shown reliable improvement if there is a significant improvement in their condition following a course of treatment, measured by the difference between their first and last scores on questionnaires tailored to their specific condition.
67.3% of referrals finishing a course of treatment showed reliable improvement
Reliable recovery
A referral has reliably recovered if they meet the criteria for both the recovery and reliable improvement measures. That is, they have moved from being a clinical case at the start of treatment to not being a clinical case at the end of treatment, and there has also been a significant improvement in their condition.
48.1% of referrals reliably recovered
The chart below compares recovery, reliable improvement, and reliable recovery rates across a period of thirteen months.
The chart below shows a further breakdown of the referrals that finished a course of treatment in Quarter 4 2022/23.
Consistently, a higher proportion show reliable improvement than move to recovery; this is because reliable improvement only looks at the scale of change, and not whether the referral has moved below the clinical caseness threshold.
Reliable recovery, which requires both recovery and reliable improvement, is the most stringent measure and therefore has the lowest rate.
Each quarter, more detailed data are published about recovery, reliable improvement and reliable recovery. The most recent quarterly data, Quarter 4 2022/23, can be found at: Psychological Therapies: reports on the use of IAPT services, England, March 2023 Final including a report on the IAPT Employment Advisers pilot and Quarter 4 2022-23 data.
For an explanation of the terms used and further information about how measures are calculated in IAPT see the 'Guide to IAPT data and publications' at Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) data set reports - NHS Digital
⁶ See p16-17 of The Mandate: A mandate from the Government to NHS England: April 2015 to March 2016, available at: The Mandate: A mandate from the Government to NHS England: April 2015 to March 2016
Last edited: 8 May 2024 1:07 pm